John Beales

I received the book Food Matters by Mark Bittman for Christmas this year, and although at the time I was reading The World is Flat I took a break to read Food Matters. The book really struck a chord with both Joanie and I, so much so that we’ve changed the way we eat, and I started keeping a journal, of my experiences eating like food matters. As of this past weekend, that journal is online, as the new blog Choices That Matter.

Food Matters has a basic message: If we eat less meat and more plants we will live healthier lives and help the planet. We eat way more meat and animal products than we really should, and the production of those products uses a vast amount of our natural resources that could otherwise be used to feed people in hungrier parts of the world or simply not used, reducing our impact on the earth.

Mark takes us through how we, as a North American society, became incredible overeaters and how we’ve been led to believe that we need to eat a lot more than we really do, and he gives us an eye-opeing look at how the food pyramid was built.

Half of the book is recipes, so Food Matters is a short and easy read. In fact, when I was finished reading it, I was surprised that it had ended and left wanting more. Maybe he’ll write a follow-up. I satisfied my hunger for more by reading through all of the recipes in the book.

If you want to lower your environmental impact, loose weight, save money, or do all of the above, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Food Matters and applying its principles to your life.

Note: Most of this entry was written at the end of January, when I finished reading Food Matters. However, I wanted to wait until I had Choices That Matter online before posting.

Want to read it yourself? Get it from one of these places and I’ll receive a small kickback:

Amazon.com (USA) Amazon.ca (Canada) Amazon.co.uk (UK)

Researchers found after watching an hour-long video of slapstick comedy that the “natural killer cells,” which seek out and destroy malignant cells, more actively attacked tumor cells in test tubes. And these effects lasted up to 12 hours. (source)

If you’re reading this line, there’s a good chance that you regularly search the internet. Probably, you use Google, or maybe, more recently Bing.  As of today there is a new way to search:  GiggleSearch.org.  GiggleSearch uses the power of Google’s search engine, but makes your searching just a little more fun.  It’s the search that actually laughs alone with you.

GiggleSearch, is more than simply a nice wrapper on Google Custom Search.  It is a social experiment.  Yes, we will hopefully make a bit of money from GiggleSearch, and half of the money we make will be donated to charity, so by GiggleSearching you are not only brightening up your day, but you are brightening the day of those who work at the charity, and of the final recipients of your help.  I will introduce our chosen charity at a later date when we’ve worked out exactly how they want to be introduced.  For now, I will just say that it is a very worthy cause.

Do you want to do even more to brighten the day of others?  You can help make GiggleSearch even more joyful by creating and submitting cute or funny Giggles and logos, and by finding even more great facts about laughter.

So, are you going to search for a happier world, or are you just going to search?

Use GiggleSearch.org to search for a happier world.